


A Nightmare on Wolf Street

by Fluxx



Series: The Spook Cruise, 2020 [2]
Category: A Nightmare on Elm Street - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Crossover, Gen, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Saves Jaskier | Dandelion, Halloween, Happy Ending, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier Gets Attacked, Nightmares, Prompt Fill, Protective Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:21:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27277165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluxx/pseuds/Fluxx
Summary: A nightmare simplytooreal has Jaskier spooked. Geralt insists it's simply his overactive imagination responding to the innkeep's ghost stories - but Jaskier's not so sure. He makes Geraltpromiseto step in and wake him up if it starts getting bad again... But, even with a witcher at his bedside, is it really safe to fall asleep?Prompt response forThe Spook Cruise, 2020:Geralt vs Freddy Kreuger.
Series: The Spook Cruise, 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1967719
Kudos: 15





	A Nightmare on Wolf Street

He ran.

His heart pounded in his ears. Branches whipped to either side of him, scraping at his tunic. The cold air bit through to his core, but he nonetheless pressed on: with every last ounce of strength, he willed himself to keep moving forward, just a little further, just a little longer.

Anything to put as much distance as possible between him and the horror behind him.

A gutteral cackling scattered the cawing crows. Hot breath brushed against the back of his neck. Sharp, pointed fingers closed upon his shoulder.

Jaskier shrieked.

Geralt grabbed both shoulders this time and gave the bard another firm shake. “Jaskier!” he bellowed, face inches away from Jaskier’s. “Wake up!”

At last, Jaskier’s eyes tore open, revealing pupils so dilated from fear they nearly replaced his irises. “Geralt!” he gasped, voice rendered hoarse from his prior screaming. “Oh, Geralt! Thank the gods…”

Geralt sighed, releasing his companion’s shoulders to sit upright upon the bed. “You really need to stop indulging these innkeepers’ ridiculous ghost stories,” he grumbled. He gestured to the floor beside the bed, where the last inch of a dying candle flickered away. “Your heart’s beating so loud I couldn’t get a single fucking hour of meditation in!”

Jaskier jumped to an upright sit, eagerly looking Geralt over. “And you know what? Even still, you look _wonderfully_ rested. Teach me, won’t you? The fine art of meditation! It’s a skill no doubt _any_ adventurer should—”

“No,” the witcher abruptly rejected. “It doesn’t work the same for humans as witchers. And it doesn’t replace sleeping!” He fixed Jaskier with a glare and a pointed finger. “Which, by the way, I can’t do if I can’t—” He broke off when a familiarly metallic scent struck his nose. His brow furrowed, and without warning he reached out and pushed aside the edge of Jaskier’s collar.

“G-Geralt!” Jaskier gasped, a full flush covering his face. Reflexively, he caught Geralt by the wrist and pulled him away, only to belatedly reconsider whether he might have preferred to leave it alone. “I’m not necessarily telling you ‘no,’ but really this is _quite_ forward, even for you!”

Geralt passed him an unamused stare. “You’re bleeding,” he muttered.

“I… What?” Jaskier blinked, then confusedly set about checking his shoulder. Sure enough four crimson dots swelled along the curve of his shoulder, his tunic sporting small holes amid its matching stains. When he finished processing what he saw, he paled, then looked pleadingly up at Geralt.

For a moment, Geralt hesitated, considering the possibility for the briefest instant before waving it off and standing up from the bed. “Told you to keep your distance from those drowners. Do you want a fresh tunic?”

“That was _hours_ ago!” Jaskier protested. “More than half a day! Look, I know humans heal slower than witchers, but we’re not _that_ slow!”

Geralt shrugged as he settled back down to a cross-legged sit beside his candle. “Tore it open in your thrashing.”

“Unbelievable,” Jaskier fumed, throwing his hands in the air. Jabbing his finger at Geralt, he insisted, “If I die in my sleep, it’ll be your fault, you know!”

“You won’t die in your fucking sleep!” Geralt growled back. Still, even he had to consider the evidence of his eyes, and with a resigned sigh finally offered, “Look, if this…” He frowned, searching his memory for the innkeep’s words. “This… ‘Knife-Fingered Banshee’… _does_ come for you, your damned heart will interrupt my meditating again. Knowing you, you’ll piss your pants long before this thing gets anywhere near you, and I’ll have plenty of time to wake you up.”

“And what if you can’t?” Jaskier indignantly countered. His eyes flickered to the floor beside Geralt. “Can I sleep on the floor? Just right there? You know, minimize the delay in. Um.” Lacking the words, he wove his hand about, indicating Geralt’s face - his senses, that is.

Geralt stared at him, long and hard. He barely had the patience for Jaskier’s usual antics, much less phantoms of the mind. On the other hand, if there _was_ some kind of ghoul haunting the place, it was like to fetch a pretty penny… and Geralt was _not_ above using his “favorite travelling companion” as live bait. He ultimately attempted a smile, succeeding in something more like a sneer, and muttered, “Fine. But you’d better not fucking touch me.”

It was the best he was going to coax out of the grumpy old wolf, so it’d have to do. Not wasting another moment, and giving Geralt no chance to reconsider, Jaskier tugged the blanket off his bed, flug it around himself, and practically dove into place upon the floor at Geralt’s side. His face beamed gratefully out of his snug cocoon and up at the witcher. “Perfect. Wonderful. Not as comfortable as the bed, of course, but far more secure! You _promise_ you’ll wake me up if—”

Geralt grouchily turned back to his candle and shut his eyes. “Good _night_!”

* * *

When Jaskier’s eyes eased open, he braced for terror… but instead, found himself in some sort of room. He sat upright upon a bed more comfortable than even the exquisite ones he’d known in his youth, with a plush blue blanket decorated with small, white flowers draped over him. The walls were made of some kind of flat material - exactly what he couldn’t tell for sure, for they were completely covered with some kind of smooth albeit patterned material. A painted nightstand stood dutifully beside him, stuffed to the brim with trinkets, framed pictures, and books. More pictures showing people he didn’t know hung from the walls, and set against the nearest wall was a cushioned wicker chair and some kind of painted white desk, a bizarre large box with a shiny face sitting atop it.

All in all, it was… unsettling, but rather calming in its strange way. Cautiously slipping his feet down to the floor, he stood up and looked around, checking in particular behind the sheer white curtains and peering through the cracked closet doors. (He’d have checked under the bed as well, but felt it better to keep his distance from whatever was or wasn’t lurking there than to get his face up close and personal.) As far as he could tell, he was alone - whether that was a good or bad thing was very much left to be seen. For the time being, he’d make the best of it that he could, content that he’d apparently earned himself at least a fleeting moment’s rest.

And in some of the finest, most luxurious nightwear he’d ever known, no less! Finally taking a moment to survey himself, he found soft, white silk draping his full body in a matching pajama set. The material was soft and cool to the touch, much finer than most of the fabrics he’d come across in his time - a peculiar thing, given the room he now stood in didn’t seem _particularly_ noble in its ownership. Oh well. Regardless of the reasons why, it was simply _divine_ to the touch, small shivers running down his spine as he admiringly ran his fingers along the garment.

His serenity soon shattered with an abrupt, sharp rapping against the window. Mortified, Jaskier looked up, and upon seeing the blade-fingered, hat-wearing silhouette lurking behind the sheer curtains gathered up fistfuls of his silk pajamas and scowled at the ghastly visitor. “No!” he scolded, reluctantly releasing one clutch of heavenly fabric to frantically grope for the room’s doorknob. “No! You are _not_ ruining this for me!”

“What’s the matter, Julian?” the ghoul’s throaty voice taunted. He ceased his tapping, but only to replace it with the long, shrill drag of his claws down the cold glass. “Thought you liked a bit of adventure?”

“Y-Y-Yes, well, I _do_ rather prefer the non-lethal variety!” he asserted. Finally figuring out he had to _turn_ the doorknob instead of just push or pull it, he flung the bedroom’s door open and burst out into the hall. Just as he did, the awful crash of shattering glass resounded behind him, and he whirled.

To Jasker’s great dismay, the figure had sure enough broke through the window and was now swiping at the surrounding debris to work the opening wider. All regard for its own well-being seemed abandoned, the cut glass and splintered wood cutting and pricking his hand and arm to leave thin trails of splattered blood upon the sheared curtains. “Aw, come on, songbird! It’ll be fun!”

“No!” Jaskier yelped as the man started crawling through the window. He spun back around and made a mad dash for the staircase. “No thank you!” His feet stampeded along the floor, the back of his mind intrigued by the plush feel between his toes. To his distant, subdued surprise, the entire hall was covered in some kind of bizarre fur - he shuddered to fathom the beast whose pelt could yield _this_ much coverage. _No doubt Geralt’s encountered at least three such ferocities!_

He’d made it halfway down the stairs with his fear somewhat muted by these distractions when suddenly his foot sank through the next step. “By the gods?!” he cried out, sloppily catching himself upon the banister. He stared down at the substance that had taken hold of his foot: thick, white, and gooey, like some kind of doughy quicksand. The way it oozed between his toes made him shudder and lurch. “This is _not_ my idea of a proper foot fetish!” he groaned, mostly to keep himself from hurling as he strove to pull his foot free.

Before he could, a loud _SLAM!_ startled a terrified shriek out of him. He twisted about and watched as the knife-fingered haunt smashed against the wall at the top of the stairs, faced stretched wide with sadistic glee. “Where you going, Songbird?” he cried, pausing just a moment before launching into a bouncing tromp down the stairs. “Sing me a song, won’t ya?!”

Jaskier screamed, abandoning any patience he had for his stuck foot. Out of desperation, he threw the full of his weight forward down the stairs, giving himself just enough momentum to coax his foot out of its gooey grip… only for his other to likewise sink through a lower step. “Oh, come on!” he wailed, powering himself through this trudging trap by the power of pure panic alone. Despite his frantic movements, his progress proved agonizingly slow, underscored by how rapidly the giddy cackling closed in behind him. He felt the air shift against the back of his neck as a ragged claw swiped just shy of its mark - it injected him with a hearty dose of abject terror that at last propelled him the last of the way down the stairs and tumbling upon the lower landing.

His hunter’s laughter filled the air. He leaped off the steps, eyes focused on his trembling prey. Jaskier rolled out of the way just in time, leaving those spread blades to rake harmlessly through the air and into the wood floor. “Where ya goin', Julian? I just wanna play!”

“Well _I_ don’t!” Jaskier yelled in reply, throwing himself against the front door. It didn’t budge. Betrayed, Jaskier’s eyes whipped between it, the handle his hands desperately yanked, and the man struggling to pull his claws free. “What the fuck?!” he despaired, unable to figure the strange metal contraptions lining its edge. “This place doesn’t make any damn sense!”

Wood split behind him. He whirled, just in time to catch the gnarled freak wrench his hands free and loudly declare his victory. “Give us a hug!” he exclaimed, then ran towards Jaskier, eyes locked upon his prey.

Jaskier let loose another shriek and dove to the side. “Geralt!” he screamed. “GERALT!!!” But he had no time to wait for a reply, one he wasn’t even certain would come. He scanned the room, grabbed the closest thing he could reasonably brandish: a rather lovely polished wood side table, very elegant with its circular top balanced upon a thin, sculpted trunk ending in a tripod-format base. He lamented its destruction for but a fleeting moment before hoisting it up and giving it a full swing across an oncoming psychopath.

It broke against a direct hit to the monster’s head, its exquisite top bursting into a flurry of splinters. He cried out in disgruntled frustration, but Jaskier was too busy eyeing what was left in his hands with fresh inspiration. He looked between the bat-like stump and an expansive window beside the door - then bolted.

“Get back here you little weasel!” growled the man behind him, but Jaskier gave no hesitation before swinging his weapon with all his strength directly to the center of the helpless window.

The pane spiderwebbed out from the impact. Rather than give it a second go, Jaskier hurled his makeshift bat behind him - little more than a nuisance to the inhuman man running towards him - and lunged. He sailed through the air, shattering his way through the window and crashing upon the night-chilled ground outside. “Geralt!” he screamed again, wasting no time in getting back up to his feet and breaking into a run. His bare feet slammed through the moist grass, and his brain struggled to process the unsettlingly manicured nature of the trees, lawns, and roads surrounding him. “Damn it, Geralt, where—”

Inane cackling filled the night. The ground shifted beneath his feet: some kind of abrupt change in elevation he hadn’t noticed in the night, followed by his foot landing upon a harsh, slick surface where it’d expected to find more soft soil. He stumbled and fell, banging and scraping his limbs against this new expanse of inky black. He could feel the chill of death licking at his heels, and he rolled over just in time to see the wide, crazed smile towering over him, the moon glinting off the man’s raised, sinister blades.

“Lights out, lover boy!”

He froze. His chest tightened. His eyes glazed over.

The hand swiped down, slicing through the icy darkness.

A shrill clang swept across the otherwise silent street as metal struck metal.

The man’s craze temporarily quieted, his brow furrowing as the figure before him slowly lifted his head, a gruff and chiseled visage emerging as the veil of dirty white hair slipped to the sides. Yellow eyes stared up at him, and the next thing he knew the blade that had caught his hand finished its swing, forcing him to stumble back a few paces. “What?!” he barked in the night.

“Hmm,” Geralt muttered, boredly slipping his sword back into the sheath at his back. His hand shifted to the other hilt. “Silver, then.”

The sweatered man sprung a crooked smile, his hands glinting under the full moon as he coquettishly cupped his gnarled face. “Jewelry already? But we’ve just met!”

But then, Geralt’s blade flashed through the air, its tip nicking the back of one hand. Instantly, the open wound steamed in the icy air, and the sadistic man let out a pained howl.

“What the hell?!” he hissed, warily giving Geralt a quick once-over. He caught the white-haired hunter’s subtle smirk, and that was all the convincing he needed to turn tail and flee.

“No you don’t!” Geralt growled in return, springing into action. He closed the distance just enough to target the ground in front of his prey with a forward-thrust sign. “Yrden!”

Purple runes swelled into life in a perfect circle across the ground. They tickled the blade-fingered man’s intrigue for but a moment before he slammed into some unseen force. Stumbling back, he yelled his frustrations to the full moon shining high above them, then furiously whirled to face the white-haired swordsman closing in on him. “I’m gonna make you regret that!” he threatened, clicking his fingers hungrily beside his head.

“Of course you are,” Geralt snickered, brandishing his silver sword as he stepped into his Yrden’s ring. “Just hurry up and do it. I need some damned sleep.”

His adversary grinned, a heinous smile pulling across the full of his face. “My favorite pastime!” Claws poised, he lunged, intent on disarming his opponent by way of rending his sword-arm’s shoulder.

Geralt shifted, but the phantom was faster, and his hand sank through his armor’s hardened leather like paper. “Hmm?” he grunted, brow furrowing in discontent. It was certainly an… _unfortunate_ miscalculation, but not something he was about to get torn up about. Instead, he pulled back his arm and let loose a devastating swing of his sword at full range.

The blade arced at an upward tilt. The crazed man jumped back, but not enough to fully escape the sear of its silver edge. It sliced easily through his sweater and dragged its tip across his torso: as his hot flesh steamed in the cold air, his head fell back and released an awful hiss of agony. “Damn you! Damn you!” he yelled, hands groping his chest in anguish. He sloppily dabbed at his wound with the shorn edges of his sweater, and it only mildly helped deter the lingering burn of Geralt’s sword. “You’re no ordinary hunter,” he growled, eyeing Geralt. He sneered. “Makes me wonder what you fear?” One hand reached for Geralt’s head.

In a flash of movement, Geralt twirled his blade around. Another pained shriek of unintelligible curses broke through the night, evidencing the direct hit. The gloved hand dropped to the ground, a spray of blood gushing from the stump it left behind. Reflexively, Geralt stepped away and to the side, spitting out some of the blood that had landed on his mouth. “You’re right,” he muttered in disgust. “I’m starting to regret this.”

A low chuckling surfaced through the pained grunts. The man slowly brought his stump between their locked gazes, and before Geralt’s eyes his hand began to regrow right then and there, complete with a fresh set of gleaming blades. “You could always put the sword down and sleep. Promise I won’t tell anyone!”

Geralt’s brow furrowed at the fully-reformed hand. “Fuck.”

The man wasted no time in launching another strike, this time swiping across Geralt’s face. Geralt leaned back from his reach, coming away with just a few shallow slits on his nose and cheek. The man laughed triumphantly, bounding closer for another slash…

…and was met with a raised hand, a soft, grey glow, and a single murmured word: “Axii.”

A strange quiet came over him - he was at once aware it was happening and unwilling to offer any protest against it, as though all resistive energy had been sapped out of him. What mental presence he retained recognized his hand slowly lowering back down to his side, and then a shimmer-like shifting of the world around him as something seemed to tug at his very core.

It was ultimately that tugging which snapped him out of it, triggering a subconscious survival response as something primal within him sensed the looming danger. He shook his head and whirled about to behold his surroundings. “What?!”

A regrettably anticlimactic final word in his terror of the land. Geralt’s silver sword sang through the air the minute his back turned. The full of its gleaming blade cut easily into, across, and through the man’s neck, sparing neither regard nor pity for the striped wool dressing it. The body fell to one side, and the head thumped, bounced, rolled upon the ground. Not one for taking chances, Geralt stomped towards it, pinned it with one foot, and finally skewered it with his sword. The abrasive meeting of silver against ghoulish flesh set a shrill pitch to the air, one that left an irritating ringing in Geralt’s ears bad enough he almost didn’t hear the intrigued, relieved, and _thoroughly_ confused voice piping up behind him.

“Geralt?” Jaskier practically squeaked, frowning at the… well, it really wasn’t that much more gruesome than other states he’d found the witcher it, but it certainly wasn’t any more pleasant. His eyes fell to the headless corpse upon the ground, and he reflexively bundled himself back up into himself and pointed. “Aaah!”

“It’s dealt with, Jaskier,” Geralt grumbled, picking up his sword - and, with it, the ghoul’s grotesque head. He turned and showed it to the bard, taking his mild delight in the lurch the gorey sight coaxed out of him. “No more Knife-Fingered Banshee.”

“You sure about that?” Jaskier distrustfully pressed.

Geralt shrugged. “No. But as good as for now until the ealdorman can afford a mage to secure the job.”

“I—” he began, but abruptly cut off when he realized the wetness of his rump and the coldness of his arms. He blinked and looked up, belatedly realizing he was sat in the middle of a field just outside the village, the sun just now dawning over the distant mountaintops. “We’re outside! How… _Why_ are we outside?!”

“Less collateral damage.” As if that were all the explanation Jaskier needed, Geralt turned and began tromping his way steadily back towards the village, plucking the head off his sword with a single, firm grasp.

Jaskier glowered at him, then hurriedly got up off the ground and scampered after the witcher. “Speaking of! Did you just use me as bait?!” He of course needed no answer. “You did! You… You… !”

“Relax, Jaskier,” Geralt sighed with a roll of his eyes. “It was the only way to get him. Besides…” He glanced over his shoulder, one brow raised, and gave Jaskier a token and summarily inadequate once-over. “You’re fine.”

“Fine?!” Jaskier scoffed in full offense. “Scared shitless, more like! Traumatized for life!”

“That’s the witcher’s path,” Geralt shrugged, knowing full well how much Jaskier loved to embellish things. “Not too late to part ways if it’s too much for you.”

Not missing a beat, Jaskier countered, “As if I truly could!” Eager to prove himself, he quickened his pace, scurrying into the lead back towards the inn. “Your whole operation depends on the public revering you and your many great deeds! You need me!”

 _Back to his usual self_ , Geralt quietly mused. Aloud, he simply chuckled, “Of course I do.”


End file.
